


warmth and heat

by honestground



Category: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Comfort, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff and Smut, in my own defence the smut was actually requested, still entirely shameless though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-20
Updated: 2017-05-20
Packaged: 2018-11-02 19:11:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10950924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honestground/pseuds/honestground
Summary: He knows he can’t protect her from everything, but Hylia be damned if he isn’t going to try.He asks, “Are you warm enough?”





	warmth and heat

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to tumblr as [warmth](https://honestground.tumblr.com/post/160696124068/warmth), a fluffy oneshot, and [heat](https://honestground.tumblr.com/post/160733158913/heat), the requested smutty companion piece. Decided to combine them and post it here for other heathens to enjoy <3

The winter chill seemed to have settled over Hateno early that year; trees turned bare and wind turned icy, weather swiftly transitioning from _cold_  to _colder._ It meant more maintenance on the house, and keeping a closer eye on supplies, and Link had about fifty more things to do before the snow really set in, but he couldn’t be happier. 

It was one of their rare weekends off, and while it was too cold out to really get much done, Link was entirely content in doing nothing with Zelda tonight, to listen to her happily thumb through the Sheikah Slate while he cooked them both dinner, the house smelling like good food and comfort and warmth.

“Link,” Zelda calls to him from her favourite chair by the fire. She sounds curious and pleasantly distracted, and Link smiles at her voice, the way his name sounds different, _better_ , coming out of her mouth, somehow. “What does this—”

She’s abruptly cut off, an odd but familiar hum of energy smothering whatever she had been about to ask, and Link turns around just in time to see her vanish in a shower of shimmering blue lights.

Link swears.

He stumbles to the front door and hurries outside, straining his ears for the hum of rematerialisation, eyes scanning the woods nearby for any sign of a blue glow, but there’s nothing. He calls her name twice, his voice breaking the second time, and though he hadn’t been expecting a response, his heart still sinks at the resounding silence. Wherever she was—and there were many possibilities—she wasn’t close by.

For a moment, blind panic seizes him, and he has to lean against the sign out front to steady himself, forces himself to read the lettering carved into the wood: _Link and Zelda’s house_ , it says—Bolson had “improved” it the week after he’d first brought her to visit, and had ignored his embarrassed protests, saying he knew true love when he saw it. 

The thought is bolstering, somehow, and Link puts his despair on hold and hurries back inside. He pulls on his boots and Hylian hood and runs out again, not bothering to lock up, heading towards the Myahm Agana shrine up the hill.

His princess was no fool. She would soon realise what has happened, take in her surroundings, and make the logical realisation that the quickest way back would be the way she got there. She’d bring up the map on the slate, select the nearest shrine to home, and would arrive safe and sound in no time.

… in theory. She had no weapons or protective clothing and there were hundreds of places she could have ended up all over Hyrule. On some Godforsaken island in the middle of the ocean, maybe, or somewhere high on a cliffside. She might have landed right where a gang of Moblins had decided to set up camp, or in an Electric Keese’s nest, or in the path of a Lynel.

Link fights off the wave of guilt and nausea, forces himself to focus and stay calm. “No use losing your head,” he mutters, Myahm Agana now within sight. He would wait fifteen minutes, he decides, and then—

 _What?_ If she didn’t rematerialise in fifteen minutes, then what?

He’d grab all his gear and travel the entire expanse of Hyrule on foot until he found her again, that’s _what_. If he had to. Whatever it took. He climbs onto the platform of the shrine, tries to dull the panic, chastises himself for not showing Zelda how the fast travel function worked sooner, _idiot_ , and waits.

He doesn’t have to wait long. Not four minutes have passed—Link had been counting—when a whirr of energy splits the calm night air, and Zelda reappears in a haze of blue, clutching the Sheikah Slate to her chest. “Link!”

Link wordlessly wraps her in his hood, scoops her into his arms, and starts to run home.

She’s freezing against him, red-faced from cold and shivering, her bare feet icy and snow in her hair. He ignores her protests of _really, Link, I’m fine_ as he carries her through the front door and lowers her to the floor by the fire, still with his hood drawn around her. He tells her not to move, grabs some blankets and his stash of emergency elixirs and is by her side again in an instant.

“Link, honestly—” she tries, as he swaddles her in two blankets, but he’s not having it.

“No,” Link growls, pulls the Sheikah Slate out of her hands and pushes an elixir into them instead. “Drink,” he commands, and she does.

Only once she’s swallowed the whole thing and Link feels as though his heart isn’t at risk of bursting out of his chest does he allow himself to settle onto the floor next to her, pulls the blankets down to cover her cold feet. Trying not to sound angry, he asks, “Where were you?” 

Zelda hesitates. Then she says, quietly, “Hebra.”

 _Hebra._ Link wearily drags a hand over his face. _Goddesses._  “What took you so long to get back?”

Zelda bristles a little. “If you _must_ know,” she says, “I was so surprised when I rematerialised that I dropped the slate and the screen shorted.” At his horrified expression she quickly adds, “I rebooted it and it was fine, obviously! It just took me a while!”

“And what if it hadn’t rebooted?”

“It’s just a little snow, Link,” Zelda says, exasperated.

“It could have been a lot worse than just a little snow.” He had tried to keep the agonised tone out of his voice, but it slips in there anyway. He reaches into the blanket to extract the empty elixir phial from her fingers and put it on the floor beside them. “ _Please_ ,” he says, enunciating harshly, lowering his eyes, unable to look at her, “don’t scare me like that again.”

“Are you giving me an order, sir knight?” Zelda says, voice gone soft.

“That’s exactly what I’m doing, Princess.” Link raises his head to look at her, and her smile vanishes at the seriousness in his eyes. He drops his head against her blanketed knees. “I thought I’d lost you,” he mumbles.

“You didn’t,” Zelda says, quiet, and Link nods numbly as her now-warm fingers card through his hair. “I’m here. Link, look at me.”

He lifts his head, finding her face much closer than he had expected. He thinks she might have been about to say something, to apologise, but at this moment he doesn’t much care, and so he leans up and kisses her, just because she’s close and she’s cold and he can.

She makes a soft noise of surprise against his mouth but soon recovers, sliding her fingers into his hair and kissing him back eagerly. The tip of her nose is cold against his face, so Link sits up straighter and kisses her harder, trying to get as close to her as possible, to keep her warm, trying to make himself believe that she’s safe here, to slow the rapid thrum of his heartbeat.

They kiss, languid and soft and clumsy, until Zelda’s nose is warm again and Link feels much more at ease. They pull apart but stay close, so that when Zelda next speaks, he can feel her lips still brushing his. “I’m sorry I worried you.”

“It’s okay.” He kisses the corner of her mouth again to punctuate it. “I’m confiscating the Sheikah Slate, though.”

Zelda prods him hard in the chest. “You wouldn’t.”

Link catches her hand, fighting to keep the smile off his face and not quite succeeding. “Did you enjoy Hebra?”

“I did!” She laughs, and the sound of it warms Link all the way to his toes. “We should plan a proper trip, maybe visit the hot springs.”

“That’s doable. I have a friend who would let us rent her cabin, probably.”

Zelda smiles at him. “That would be lovely.”

Link reaches through the gap in the blankets to run his hand over her neck and shoulder, needing to feel the warmth of her skin, to remind him that she’s fine, she’s safe, she’s _still here_. He knows he can’t protect her from everything, but Hylia be damned if he isn’t going to try. He asks, “Are you warm enough?”

Zelda hums thoughtfully, and he suspects the red in her cheeks isn’t anything to do with the cold anymore. She hooks her finger into the neck of his tunic to pull him in again. “I could stand to be a little warmer.” 

Their mouths connect in a rush of heat and energy, and the hand Link left resting on Zelda’s neck moves up to tangle in her hair, to angle her head the way he likes and drag her closer. Her fingers slip beneath the collar of his tunic to trace his chest and collarbones, leaving goosebumps in their wake as she kisses him, open-mouthed and searing hot. 

He’s kissed her enough times to be able to read them, decode them by the intensity and neediness of her mouth, and she shifts to her knees to half-climb into his lap, kisses him breathless and messy and perfect. Against his mouth she mumbles what he already knows: _Want you. Need you._

Still heady with adrenaline, with the relief of her being home safe in his arms, Link groans low in his chest, fumbles for the laces on her dress as her lips traverse down his jaw and neck, burning and branding wherever she goes. She tugs pertinently at his shirt even as her bodice slips, but the soft glow of the skin of her shoulders is too enticing, so Link leans up and bites, sucks and kisses all the way up her neck until their lips meet again. 

Zelda’s hands slide under his tunic as she whimpers against his mouth, and when Link feels the material ride up to his armpits he has to pull away with a laugh. “Impatient?” he asks, grasping at his collar to pull the tunic over his head as Zelda busies herself with her own dress. 

“A brush with certain death will do that to a person,” she teases, and Link’s heart clenches a little even at the joke, but then she discards her dress, and she’s all warm, soft, perfect skin, glowing in the light cast by the fire, and Link hurriedly shucks his own tunic and reaches for her again, to feel her warm and bare against him, melting against her in relief. 

His mouth closes around one nipple while his thumb brushes over the other, and Zelda’s head falls back with a soft cry. Her hips grind down against him in a purposeful rhythm, distracting, and Link gasps and mouths clumsily between her breasts, his hands roaming thoughtlessly over her sides and back, head clouded, dizzy from the sheer warmth of her.

There’s a flurry of clothing as Zelda sheds her underthings and Link tugs off his breeches, and then they tangle together again, mouths hot and skin burning pleasantly where they touch. Link pulls the blanket around them both again, determined to keep her warm, and Zelda sighs and rolls her hips against him, impatient, and Link grins against her neck and drops his hand to stroke gently between her legs.

“Stop teasing,” she hisses, so Link quickly slips two fingers into her, curling them, and she cries out in pleased surprise. “Link!”

“You asked,” he says, and kisses her soundly on the mouth again, and his erection twitches at the sensation of her sliding easily against his palm. “How do you…?”

“Like this—just like this,” Zelda says, and Link extracts his fingers, shining wet from her, runs that same hand over his length, positions himself at her entrance as she braces her arms on his shoulders. 

He looks up into her face, flushed and beautiful and wonderfully warm, licks his lips as she begins to ease down onto him. He loves this part; watching her gasp, feeling the rush of it when their bodies finally, finally connect, and once he’s fully inside her, he smoothes his hand over her back as she settles more comfortably into his lap, and he says, “I love you.” 

Zelda cups his face with both hands, thumbs skimming the line of his jaw, and she smiles as her long hair falls around them both like a curtain. Here by the fire, wrapped in the blanket, in the home he has made with her, Link can’t think of a time he’s ever felt safer. “I love you too,” Zelda says softly, and she carefully starts to move. 

Link splays his fingers at the small of her back, moaning long and low with the measured roll of her hips, holding her close to him as she whines and trembles. She’s soft and gentle and wonderful, her fingers tangling in his hair as she rides him in a slow grind, blankets slipping again from her shoulders to pool at her hips, her breath hot and shaky against his ear. 

Link braces one hand on the floor, the other grasping her hip, and he pushes up into her roughly, making her entire body shake from the force of it, and she gasps. “Again,” she commands, “ _right there_ ,” and Link complies, watching as she leans away from him, chest heaving and back arched, kiss-swollen lips parted as she pants, radiant in the firelight.  

“Goddesses, you’re beautiful,” Link mumbles, and Zelda makes a desperate, keening noise, clutches at his shoulders and stills her hips, her entire body seizing up, tightening, and Link pushes into her once again, slow but forceful, and she moans brokenly as she comes, head tilted to the ceiling, her chest and column of her throat dewy and glowing with exertion. 

Link waits until she’s finished trembling, then he bundles her into his arms again and kisses her deeply, rolling them over so she’s on the floor with the blanket beneath her. He entwines their fingers, pinning both her hands above her head and rocks into her gently, relishing in the soft pants that escape her mouth, until he has to gasp out a warning— _Zelda, Zelda—_ and his hips stutter helplessly, her legs tight around his waist, groaning with his face pressed against the warmth of her neck. 

They lie together afterwards, Zelda’s head pillowed by Link’s chest, covered by the blanket and listening to the crackling of the fire and the icy wind howling outside. Zelda shivers suddenly, and Link runs his hand up the length of her arm, immediately concerned. “You okay?” 

“Mm,” Zelda replies, soft and sated and happy. “Just tired.” 

“Let me get you a pillow,” Link says, trying to ease out from under her, but she holds fast, unmoving. 

“No, no. Stay,” she says, sleepy but firm, and she makes a satisfied noise as he settles back down. Snuggling closer, she says, “Keep me warm.”

Link draws both his arms around her, holding her safe against his chest, pushes his nose into her hair and breathes her in. She smells of comfort, of warmth, of home. 

He closes his eyes, Zelda’s ear pressed against the slow rhythm of his heartbeat, and allows sleep to take him.   

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on [tumblr](https://honestground.tumblr.com) if seeing me cry about these two game characters is within your realm of interests. I will also be posting more smut there, because I've made it a personal quest of mine to try and even out the balance between the Zelink and SidLink works available.
> 
> ... I have a long way to go.


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